Rules concerning booking flights from one of my five authorised stopovers

[serfty]

I have a couple of questions I am hoping you may be able to clarify:
1. So if I were to book the additional side trips as part of the OWA booking would those trips be regarded as 'segments'?

2. If in the context of an overall OWA booking I stopped for more than 24 hours at each of the 'segments' those stops then be regarded as 'stopovers'?

1. If those are booked as a completely separate trip outside of the existing booking with no refence it there is no issue.

2. Greater than 24 hours is a stopover.

Here, it is best to compartmentalize separate bookings.

Any flight a single flight number on a single date between two ports is considered a segment. You can have up to 16 in a booking.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

I have a couple of questions I am hoping you may be able to clarify:
1. So if I were to book the additional side trips as part of the OWA booking would those trips be regarded as 'segments'?

2. If in the context of an overall OWA booking I stopped for more than 24 hours at each of the 'segments' those stops then be regarded as 'stopovers'?

The booking as a whole comes with certain rules, which, if you follow, cap the total number of points required.

You can have up to 16 segments, 5 stopovers, cannot return to the country of departure, cannot transit/transfer through the same city more than twice, etc, etc.

You can plan your itinerary to anywhere you want, you could fly Australia to Prague, then have side trips to Berlin and Athens, then fly to London, then to New York, or make your way home, or whatever. But as you add each segment, it will count towards your stopover limit, and towards any other rules such as transits or transfers through cities.

If you have already reached you 5 stopover limit, the only way to do your side trips will be through separate tickets.

If you have not reached your 5 stopover limit you can call to add flights to your existing OWA. Provided you stay in the rules, the points cap will remain.

But calling to add sectors comes with risks if the agent doesn’t know how to do it, or doesn’t process your ticket quickly enough to make sure it doesn’t time out and cancel.

 

[Matt_01]

1. So if I were to book the additional side trips as part of the OWA booking would those trips be regarded as 'segments'?

If the the side trips are on a different PNR/ticket they are not part of the OWA booking. These are completely seperate as they are are on different PNR/ticket.
If the the side trips are on the PNR/ticket for the OWA booking, then yes they will be counted within the rules.

2. If in the context of an overall OWA booking I stopped for more than 24 hours at each of the 'segments' those stops then be regarded as 'stopovers'?

If the stop is greater than 24 hours on any segment booked as part of the OWA PNR/ Ticket it will be considered a stopover. For any segment booked outside of the OWA PNR/ticket it does not matter how long you stay.

The OWA rules (35000 miles, stopovers, transits, carriers etc.) only come into play for the OWA PNR/ Ticket. Anything other travel be it trains, other flights etc. are all seperate.

 

[dajop]

Anything that you book outside the OWA is irrelevant to the OWA - whether it be train, plane, car, bus or ferry. Qantas doesn’t need to know about any of this.

If you want to do side trips that are part of the OWA booking it makes it more complicated as it adds to the segment count and you may hit the rule that allows only one stopover per city. So you could add in, for example London and fly Prague-London-Prague. But you would have to depart Prague again in less than 24 hrs (on a flight on that ticket). as you are not allowed to stopover once within the same city. This is why , particularly for those who are not that experienced in the nuances of such a booking, to have side trips completely outside the booking, and as mentioned this gives freedom as to mode of transport and airlines.

At the risk of complicating things for you - one thing you can do if you are reaching the limit of 5 stopovers - is fly into Prague and out of another city altogether (or vice versa)- as this only counts as a single stopover (the distance between the cities counts towards the overall distance though). So , for example could fly into London, make your own way to Prague outside the OWA ticket and leave from Prague - that is just one stopover, but the 650 miles between the two cities counts. When I say “make your own way” that could be by bus, train, walking, cycling or even by plane on Ryanair or a completely separate British Airways booking , it makes no difference (and Qantas won’t even know about it).

 

[offshore171]

But calling to add sectors comes with risks if the agent doesn’t know how to do it, or doesn’t process your ticket quickly enough to make sure it doesn’t time out and cancel.

Yes, this exactly. We have seen over the years many cases on this forum. User rings up to add just one more flight to an OWA. Call centre stuffs it up, or it doesn't re-ticket quick enough and the whole thing cancels out. Then it's a fight to get the award seats back.

it is best to compartmentalize separate bookings.

This is the right word for it. Compartmentalise your side-quests.

These are parts of a trip where you are most likely to require flexibility. Eg: Longer stay here, shorter stay there.

In many cases, a non OW carrier might be the best option for a side-trip. In some cases it can mean a quick 1hr direct flight, vs, for example a whole day production backtracking to London or Helsinki if trying to stay in OW+partners.

In Europe especially, the side trip is often a train, as mentioned earlier.

The other big advantage of compartmentalising these side trips, is if you happen to miss a flight due to traffic accident, illness, slept in, whatever, the "damage" is contained to that flight.

Your main OWA itinerary is isolated from this and remains safe.

 

[NM]

Also note that you can "save" a stopover if you land at one airport, purchase a separate ticket or travel by any other means to another airport and take up your journey from the new port.

So, for example, I did a OneWorld Award where we landed into LAX, rented a card and drove around for a few weeks, and then departed from Las Vegas. So the part from landing at LAX and departing from LAS was one stopover. Similarly we then flew to Orlando and rented a car and used a few trains over a few weeks and our next departure on that award was from Toronto. That was stopover number 2. Then we flew to Kyiv for stopover number 3, then to NCL in the UK and drove around the UK for a few weeks and train over to Paris and trains all over Europe for a few weeks, eventually departing from stopover number 4 from Berlin to Helsinki for stopover number 5. Then flew HEL-FRA-SIN-BNE to return home.

So you do not have to depart from the same airport following a stopover. The mileage between the arrival and departure point on such a stopover is still counted in the total trip mileage, but that "ground sector" does not consume any of your flight sectors and is seen as just one stopover and not two.